Summary of Happy Fifth Anniversary, Variable Fonts | Peter Constable | ATypI 2021 All Over

00:00:00 - 00:55:00

This video discusses the success of variable fonts and the potential for them to be adopted more widely in the future. It highlights some of the challenges that designers and developers face when trying to use them effectively, and points out the need for more flexibility in the design space and better support for italic and slant in CSS.

• 00:00:00 In 1997, web fonts were introduced with the at font face rule in CSS2. In 2010, web fonts were standardized with the introduction of the @font-face rule in CSS3. In 1997, responsive design was beginning to take shape, and in 2010, variable fonts started to be adopted more widely. In 1997, Apple discontinued support for multiple Master variable font files. In 2010, Peter Constable introduced moth, a variable font distribution format, at the Web Fonts Summit.
• 00:05:00 In March of 2016, the web font working group convened to discuss the feasibility of reintroducing multiple Master fonts for web use. In December of 2016, CSS Fonts Level 4 was published with extensions for variable fonts. In 2018, Mandy Michael created animations with the decovar font.
• 00:10:00 In 2016, ATypI discussed the potential of font variations being integrated into OpenType, the benefits of size savings, the importance of familiarity for design professionals already using interpolation, and the promise of new opportunities for typography in responsive design.
• 00:15:00 The video discusses the success of variable fonts, citing examples of how the fonts have been adopted in various ways. One area of concern is the slow adoption of variable fonts by graphic designers, which the speaker anticipates may change in the future.
• 00:20:00 The video discusses the potential of variable fonts, and people's disappointment with Adobe's lack of support for them. One theme that came up again and again was disappointment with Adobe's lack of support for variable fonts in their various applications. There are several challenges that developers face when trying to support variable fonts in their applications, and office is no exception. However, there are also many potential benefits that are not being realized due to Adobe's lack of support. Adobe needs to invest in supporting variable fonts in their applications in order to achieve widespread success.
• 00:25:00 The video discusses the pros and cons of using variable fonts, and highlights some of the challenges that designers and developers face when trying to use them effectively. It also mentions the need for more flexibility in the design space, and the need for better support for italic and slant in CSS.
• 00:30:00 Variable fonts can be difficult to work with in CSS, and some vendors are trying to charge more for them than for static fonts. One solution is to communicate the value of variable fonts to customers, and designers may need more understanding of typography to use them effectively.
• 00:35:00 The video discusses the different uses for typography, discussing how typography can be used to improve the quality of a product or to express creativity. The video also discusses how typography can be used in finance to increase the quality of text across all categories of users.
• 00:40:00 In this video, Peter Constable discusses how Variable Fonts have progressed, but there are still some gaps in software that need to be filled before the value proposition can be effectively communicated to customers. He also mentions that there is a need for more talented typographers and engineers to work together to fill these gaps.
• 00:45:00 The speaker points out that there is a need for more sophistication in software and fonts, and that type users need to be more specific about what they are looking for. He also mentions that there is a lack of good information on variable fonts.
• 00:50:00 In this video, Peter Constable talks about how type designers need to work together to promote the use of variable fonts, and how the industry needs to unite to make this happen. John Berry, Logan Drummond, and Tobias Freund all offer their thoughts on the matter. Dave Crosland, from Google fonts, also makes a comment.
• 00:55:00 In this video, Peter Constable discusses Variable Fonts and how they can be used to create more expressive and customizable text. He also discusses a new extension to the color table that will add significant new capabilities to Vector color fonts.